ED Chances, greatly appreciated

Colleges and Universities A-Z Barnard College
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<p>I don’t know anything about CUNY. My daughter wanted to attend school in NYC so she applied to Fordham as a safety/backup and Fordham offered a fairly generous merit award. My d. still did better with need-based aid at Barnard, but Fordham has always had the reputation of offering excellent academics. My daughter had an array of excellent choices in the spring, she was accepted at 9 different college and I think we had reasonable financial aid awards to compare from about 5 or 6. The most affordable option would have been UC Santa Cruz, but I was willing to pay out somewhat more for Barnard — but if the situation had been different, my d. would have been happy to attend a UC. In hindsight, even more so – she has seen her high school friends do quite well at the various UC’s and the excitement/glamour of living in NYC wears off very, very fast. </p>

<p>You seem to be very black & white in your thinking pattern – either Barnard/Tufts/NYU or CUNY, nothing in between. Outside of the honors program, I don’t know if CUNY would be affordable to you, because I think that dorm housing is limited and it’s quite expensive to live in NY. From your college list that seems to be your primary goal. it might help you to know that (a) NY is a very, very expensive place to live, and (B) people are allowed to live and work in NYC even if not attending school. I mean, I know kids who have attended college at Grinnell and taken summer internships in NYC or moved to NY after graduating – it’s not like they were stuck in Iowa for the rest of their lives. </p>

<p>You clearly haven’t done much research into Barnard’s financial aid practices – you apparently had concocted the whole transfer idea without even checking to see whether they guaranteed to meet full need of transfer students. (Hint: most colleges don’t) I think transfer admissions at Barnard are about as selective as regular admissions, and I doubt that they take too many transfers from CUNY in any case, though maybe that’s simply because there probably aren’t all that many CUNY students who want to swap schools and pay Barnard’s tuition. </p>

<p>Barnard students are currently quite distressed over recent changes to tuition policy. It is clear that Barnard is strapped for cash and doing a lot of belt tightening. </p>

<p>There is no “catch-22” situation except one of your own making, because of you seem unwilling to expand the array of match/safety schools you will consider. You probably could get an excellent education along with excellent financial aid if you would cast a wider net in your college search. </p>

<p>Barnard may very well accept you and offer excellent aid, it’s just that you can’t assume one way or another. </p>

<p>I understand that it can be expensive to apply to a lot of colleges. That might be a good reason to spend extra effort so that you can apply to perhaps 4-6 schools in total, and choose others that are highly likely to be affordable in your circumstances. Drop NYU from your list because you know at the outset that they won’t meet your need; and start looking at colleges which are moderately selective and likely to be generous with both need based & merit aid. It looks like you have strong test scores, which should be an asset in that respect. I mean, the problem is that you have this Barnard vs. CUNY plan when there is probably a whole array of mid-range colleges that you are ignoring simply because you seem to be stuck on the idea of attending college in NY.</p>

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<p>karma, ask Barnard’s financial aid officer (not a clerk) how often it happens that after an applicant accepts the estimated FA package, a student’s revised FA package (i.e., less than the early estimate) causes attendance to be impossible. If it has ever happened, ask about resulting negative (web?) publicity.</p>

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<p>Oh, gee, I forgot to ask the financial aid officer about the ‘negative publicity’ that year when they told me that if they didn’t get the paperwork they wanted from my ex, they wouldn’t write a financial aid award for d’s junior year. I did ask what happened in other cases like mine, and they told me that the students had to drop out… but i forgot all about the part that if i just would have posted an angry message on CC, all would have been fine. I was so distressed at the time worrying about how my kid could possibly stay in school that I just plumb forgot that all I had to do was mention CC and then all would be fine.</p>

<p>Every year on CC there are are cases in April where students or parents are upset because their ED award has not materialized with the final award. Barnard has very firm policies in place and are very numbers oriented. They will write their award based on the final paperwork – their previous estimate is only as good at whatever estimated figures they were given.</p>

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<p>@Karma about CUNY
The CUNY Macaulay Honors college is very geared towards low-income New York City High School students (usually minorities) who have great grades. You get full tuition, yearly stipends to go travel abroad, a new macbook each year and depending on the campus, free dorming. You haven’t gone to a NYC High School though, so I kind of seriously doubt it would be so easy for you to get in. Macaulay is considered very competitive among NYC HS students, and you apply to one of five different CUNY campuses. The most desireable of them is Hunter College because Macaulay at Hunter offers FREE SINGLE-PERSON DORMS on 23rd Street. They’re very nice dorms too!</p>

<p>I go to a CUNY-funded high school, so Macaulay Honors is my best safety. The average accepted GPA for Macaulay is about 95 for regular NYC high school students, but its like 87 at mine. </p>

<p>Non-macaulay kids do not have dorms and if they do manage to get one, the rent is steep. Some campuses have dorms for non-honors kids (Lehmen and Brooklyn), but most don’t most CUNY schools are commuter schools.</p>

<p>I know TONS about CUNY seeing as that I’m a student there right now. Feel free to ask me anything at all. Right now I’m taking a 300-level course filled with undergrad seniors/juniors. It really depends on your definition of challenging, but I don’t think I’m being pushed to my limits in a 300-level course there. Its a great class with a great instructor, but I don’t think I would be happy at CUNY simply because I need to be in an environment of intellectually stimulating peers. There are a lot of older people in the class, since CUNY also serves as a training/back-to-books place for matriculated students to get certain credit requirements. Most people are there just to get the grades and leave immediately. </p>

<p>If youre interested in business, Baruch has really good job/career-placement. Each campus is good for something different.</p>

<p>About Fordham: Its VERY interesting because Fordham is nationally considered to be a competitive university, yet I can’t think of a single NYC high school kids I know that thinks of it highly. </p>

<p>All of my friends go to the top new york city high schools (stuyvusent, bronx science, chapin, brearley), and this is basic meltdown for elitist high school seniors who need to stay in NY:</p>

<p>a) If you really screwed up in high school and/or poor, you go to CUNY. Hunter is considered the best overall. Baruch is considered the best for business.
b) If you are an average student with regular financial funds, you go to a SUNY. Binghamton is considered best overall. Stonybrook considered best for Pre-med. Geneseo is third best.
3) If you are stupid, but extremely rich, you go to NYU. NYU gives NO financial aid grants at all. If your EFC is 0, they will tell you for $50,000. Do not count on NYU for aid–they will not give it to you. NYU Stern is considered the only school worth taking out loans for. NYU does not really have a campus and its full of rich hipsters kids from out-of-state. It’s also very easy to get into NYU… comparable to SUNY.
3) If you are really smart, you end up at Columbia.
4) If you are really smart but didn’t get into Columbia or Cornell, you go to Macaulay Honors.
5) If you did well on the PSAT but are poor, you go to SUNY because SUNY gives full rides to valedictorians/national merit kids. </p>

<p>Most of the kids I know who live in Manhattan are doing ALL THAT THEY CAN to LEAVE the city. </p>

<p>Haha. Growing up here makes you roll your eyes when you see tourists.</p>

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<p>Great post, noloserhere!</p>

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<p>@Calmom, </p>

<p>I’m applying to about 10-13 schools in Boston, NYC, DC, Chicago, and Montreal. My older sister is paying for my application fees. Don’t worry, I’ve got my bases covered. You can safely assume that the reason I’ve only talked about Barnard or CUNY here is becase 1. this is the Barnard thread, and it’s my first choice, and 2. you brought up CUNY and I wanted to know more about the program. </p>

<p>@Noloserhere,</p>

<p>Thanks for the NYC perspective! Unfortunately, I’m not the podunk “tourist” you seem to think that I am. I mentioned that my mother lives in Ohio and my father lives in Idaho- I never said I did. I’ve lived all over the US and in Rome and Amsterdam. I haven’t lived with my dad in 3 years, and like I said, I don’t really talk to my mom. I have family in NYC, and know what it’s like, and I love it. I love cities in general. If I were French, I’d be in Paris; if I were Italian, I’d be in Rome. I’m American, so I feel the happiest in NYC. </p>

<p>Fordham is on my list, but it’s more of a safety school for me because I’ve heard only bad things about it’s academics. If it came down to Fordham or somewhere like Boston U I’d probably choose the later.</p>

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<p>The point is, you need safeties, and Fordham can be generous with merit aid in some circumstances. It was a safety for my daughter as well, one that she only added at the last minute. (She didn’t really need safeties because she was guaranteed admission to the UC system). </p>

<p>FWIW, my daughter was accepted at Barnard, Chicago, Berkeley, etc., but waitlisted at Boston U… so its no safety. I don’t know if BU is need blind with admissions however – they are pretty direct about explaining their financial aid system, and she wouldn’t have qualified for all that much aid there. BU does not guarantee to meet full need - they used to have a chart on their web site where you could look up your GPA and test scores and figure from there what likely aid would be.</p>

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<p>Do you know of any good schools with good financial aid that I could get into?
I’ve been researching schools for months now, but the best aid seems to go with the best schools, and I do need safeties.</p>

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<p>@karma621</p>

<p>I have an econ teacher who keeps telling me to not apply to good colleges. She strongly believes that undergrad does not matter at all and that we’d be better off saving our money up for grad schools. She keeps encouraging her kids to go to CUNY instead of going Ivy.</p>

<p>I think the hilarity of this situation really shines through when you consider that shes telling these things to kids in a high school with a 35% ivy-league matriculation (no, I’m not kidding… top public HS in the nation in terms of yearly ivy league admits). </p>

<p>I thought about it a bit and realized that almost all my teachers essentially did the same thing that she suggested. My econ teacher went to Amherst, and then did grad school at Princeton. My history teacher went to Wesleyan, and then Harvard for grad school. My english teacher went to Williams, and then Harvard for grad school. </p>

<p>So, I’m just saying. If financial aid is concern AND you plan to go to grad school, CUNY is not so bad of an option so long as you do WELL there.</p>

<p>You don’t need to go to the best school ever for undergrad. All older people will tell you that Grad school matters more anyway. </p>

<p>Of course, a good undergrad is nice too. But I’m just saying. Its not the end of the world.</p>

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<p>Karma, the safety schools tend not to give strong need based aid overall, but they typically either offer merit aid or leverage their need based aid to give the best packages to the students who are their strongest applicants. If the school is a true “safety”, then most likely you will be one of those stronger applicants who would attract the aid. The aid package in those circumstances can often be much better than you would get from a 100% need school, because basically you are getting favorable packaging.</p>